Garage Gym Warrior Offsets Question

[kez56]

Hi everyone,

I've recently purchased Andy's Garage Gym Warrior and have a question about the offsets. I know that there is option of using bigger offsets of 10%-20% for lifters that are using heavier weights.

A little info about myself:

Age: 50
Height: 6'2"
Weight: 275

Bench: 285lbs
Squat: 395lbs
Deadlift: 445lbs
Press: 175lbs

These lifts are confirmed 1RM's from about 4 weeks ago.

I've been lifting consistently for the last 5 years (after a 20+ year layoff) using Wendlers 5/3/1 and have had some success with it but I'm looking for something different for my now aging body.

I'd be interested to hear from other forum members who've used the program and their experiences about selecting the most appropriate/correct offset. I'm thinking about using the bigger offsets but I'm concerned that this might make the light and medium days somewhat too light. At the same time, I don't want to get to the week 9 mark and find that the program is burying me by not being smart about selecting my offsets.

Any thoughts and feedback is welcome.

Cheers

[SteveL]

Hi everyone,

I've recently purchased Andy's Garage Gym Warrior and have a question about the offsets. I know that there is option of using bigger offsets of 10%-20% for lifters that are using heavier weights.

A little info about myself:

Age: 50
Height: 6'2"
Weight: 275

Bench: 285lbs
Squat: 395lbs
Deadlift: 445lbs
Press: 175lbs

These lifts are confirmed 1RM's from about 4 weeks ago.

I've been lifting consistently for the last 5 years (after a 20+ year layoff) using Wendlers 5/3/1 and have had some success with it but I'm looking for something different for my now aging body.

I'd be interested to hear from other forum members who've used the program and their experiences about selecting the most appropriate/correct offset. I'm thinking about using the bigger offsets but I'm concerned that this might make the light and medium days somewhat too light. At the same time, I don't want to get to the week 9 mark and find that the program is burying me by not being smart about selecting my offsets.

Any thoughts and feedback is welcome.

Cheers

I have not done this program as I'm using the BBP Heavy Light program which has been gold for me so far. In BBP they define light as something you are not struggling with on the last rep. I've been doing the program since the beginning of the year and I've finally titrated my back offs to what seems to work best. It seems to span around 90% to as high as 92.5% for my back offs but that's just me.

[Trash_Panda]

I just finished up GGW at the end of April, first time running it. I didn't do any pressing. I started off with my normal maxes and quickly backed off 10% on back squat FWIW.

Bench - 263
Squat - 326
DL - 357

[Jim Upchurch]

I’m in week 3 of GGW. So far I’m just working the numbers he had provided in the workout with my confirmed 1RMs.

I figure if I need to back down I can do so when I get to a sticking point. I know it’s still early in the program, but so far so good.

[Bryan Bulmann]

Hi everyone,

I've recently purchased Andy's Garage Gym Warrior and have a question about the offsets. I know that there is option of using bigger offsets of 10%-20% for lifters that are using heavier weights.

A little info about myself:

Age: 50
Height: 6'2"
Weight: 275

Bench: 285lbs
Squat: 395lbs
Deadlift: 445lbs
Press: 175lbs

These lifts are confirmed 1RM's from about 4 weeks ago.

I've been lifting consistently for the last 5 years (after a 20+ year layoff) using Wendlers 5/3/1 and have had some success with it but I'm looking for something different for my now aging body.

I'd be interested to hear from other forum members who've used the program and their experiences about selecting the most appropriate/correct offset. I'm thinking about using the bigger offsets but I'm concerned that this might make the light and medium days somewhat too light. At the same time, I don't want to get to the week 9 mark and find that the program is burying me by not being smart about selecting my offsets.

Any thoughts and feedback is welcome.

Cheers

Hey Kez,

I'm 53; 6', and ~250lbs and I've completed Andy's GGW program. As advertised, I ended up averaging a 5% improvement on all my lifts. I ended the program with the following PR's:

SQ=345==>360
DL=425==>450
BP=235==>255
OP=175==>185

All in lbs. I did the program with the percentages as given each week. The first 3wks were fairly easy; felt like work the next 3; and the last 3 were tough. IIRC, Andy suggests either using pauses or variations if you feel your light and medium days aren't producing enough stress. In my case (I was ''bench-centric"), I swapped out medium bench with close-grip bench and light squats with paused squats. I really liked doing it that way, though YMMV.

Also, you have the option of adding a set to light or medium days....but I wanted to stay with Andy's basic tenet of sticking to the program as written the first time through. On any subsequent run-thrus; his HLM informational videos contain several suggestions to tweak the program to run more in line with your preferences (i.e. competition; fat-loss; hypertrophy, etc).

Hope this helps!

--Bryan

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

I think you'll be okay to just run the program as written the first time through. If something is not 100% spot on after the first run through you can tweak it a bit. But people very rarely if ever crash and burn on this program. The last couple of heavy weeks are very tough, but they are doable. Worst case scenario take 5-10 lbs off the bar in the last week or so and still aim to complete the volume and you'll still likely set new PRs when you test out. It's a very reliable program and the workload is very doable for a guy your age.